pert near time to shit, or get.

lots to process these days.

big changes are looming, decisions to make, paths to take...it's time to at least pretend like i'm a grown-up for awhile.

*sigh*

divorce papers are signed - after 7 years.  hell, after 20 years - it was a long road, rewarding in so many ways.  no regrets.  we have now each retreated to our corners and are taking a breath.  we are still partners in parenting and we are - amazingly - friends.  seems we have always been headed in two different directions...and now we find that, finally, it works.

i have so many decisions to make and i find that all i want to do is run away.  from everything.  i can't breathe here, i need to breathe.  i'm circling - shit, i'm balls out spinning - around and around.  don't know where to stop, don't know where to start.  i have people depending upon me, depending upon the decisions i make.  i don't want to make any of them, i just want to fade out.  i have people counting on me to do the things that are right for them.  i've rarely ever done the right thing.  and now, it appears that it's really important. totally fucking sucks. (she says in her new grown-up, responsibility-laden voice).

it's changing me. i feel it, from the inside.  it's frightening because i have no idea what the result will be. truly...none.  for such a long time, i've just ambled along just doing my thing.  going where i'm supposed to go, doing what i'm supposed to do, then making the time to do what i wanted. what if i no longer know what i want?  what if i never really did?  i stop, step back and take a look at shawna and wonder what the fuck her life is even about now.

i dig me, i just confuse the shit outta me.  i make things so much harder than they need to be.  it's a great time in my life...i'm starting to feel the freedoms that come when your kids branch off and start to do their own things.  one kid is moved on to do his own grown-up thing.  i feel for him...i remember when i first became aware of real responsibility.  i remember wanting to run back home, dive behind my mom and say "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!?".  i feel for him because he is in such a hurry to get moving in his life - we always are.  i get it, but i still feel pangs of sadness for what lies ahead of him. having to back away from mama-bear mode is very hard for me.  i know he has mistakes to make, i know he may fall.  i believe he is strong enough to get back up and straighten the shit out, but it still frightens me.  another kid seems to be growing emotionally right before my eyes.  it may be a temporary thing, but what i am seeing is helping to ease some of the stress.  thank God.  yet a third kid is beginning a whole new chapter in her life these days.  she too, is growing before my eyes - here it is more of a physical/mental thing.  she is growing but she is just now entering a whole new realm of reality for all of us:  a teen-aged daughter/sister/creature-with-snake-hair/whatever thing.  she will change each and every one of us, in one way or another.

i am at a crossroads.  a natural one, i get that, but no less frightening than any other has been for me.  i just don't do change well...looking back into the past on some of the biggest changes that have occurred in my life, i realize that i have rarely handled them well, emotionally.  i realize that after the dust settles, i tend to flail about for a good while longer.  trying to find *my* ground.  sometimes it takes awhile.   i will see to it that the things that need to be taken care of, are...but won't be surprised if i wander off in my head afterwards to sort it all out.

baby steps.  fuck this day-at-a-time crap.  i WANT to take it one bottle at a time, but even *I* know that isn't the way to handle things.  :)

how about we do this one hour at a time. i think i can do that.

all kindsa fucked up.

i was told last week that i was to not blog about what's been going on in my life.  it's private, shawna...keep it that way.  know what?  this is me...giving a shit about what you think.  i communicate, it's what i do...i realize that's a foreign concept to you.  oh, and you know what else?  ...fuck you.  just because you continue to hide everything away so no one will ever discover the truth about you, doesn't mean i have to.  not any longer. you aren't my real dad.  my real dad digs me.


<3 i love you, real dad <3

i am in turmoil.  like i haven't been in a really long time...things keep hitting me from all sides and i'm buckling.  seriously.  i truly am a weak person.  sure, i can be strong on the outside and around people i don't love. i will protect and shield those i do love, when they need it.  but, get me inside, surrounded by my heart and i am a complete mess.  i cry, i question everything i've ever done.  it blows balls.  i am all kindsa fucked up.

out of respect for those involved, i won't go into details, as much as i feel the desire to...i will say that i have hit a wall in one respect - i'm out of ideas. i've beat my head against this for about 3 years now over the same thing.  even when it appears to be, it's not better, just smoke and mirrors.
{hahahahaaaa, omg i just made a joke and you have no clue.  seriously, i think i'm finally going bat-shit crazy.  ok...back to the surface i go.}
the truth is, nothing has really changed in this situation...all of the talking and rationalizing and deal-making.  none of it seems to have made any difference...it's still going downhill.  or at the very least, plateaued at a not-so-great-actually-rather-shitty-when-you-really-look-at-it level.  i went to my final at-bat with regards to this last week and i'm pretty sure i have still failed.  time will tell, but it's not looking good.  does there comes a point in certain relationships where it's better if we say "fuck it, i really truly gave it my all and i don't know what else to do" and let the chips fall where they fall?  is there really is a point in which you can do no more to help someone see a positive path?  this will come back to bite me in the ass, i have no doubt.  somehow, it will fall back on me - but i really truly have no other aces up my sleeve right now.  it's quite possibly time to let what will be, be.

on another front, i have been fucked over by my personal sense of trust and judgement.  it is really messing with my head.  someone i trusted with all of me turned out to be nothing but a manipulative piece of judgmental, psychotic shit.  don't really want to talk about that.  it is very nerve-wracking.  but, i find myself questioning every thing and worse, every ONE right now. good on you, you piece of shit...you have infiltrated the inner sanctum.  you have fun with that...you fucked up mother-fucker.

lastly - i don't mean to be cryptic, but stick with me here, i do have to protect the "innocent" - someone close to me is echoing someone else who used to be close to me.  in a very painful way and, therefore...it really fucking hurts. bad.  like a knife directly into my gut and then twisted over and over again, bad.  back to the questioning everything.  this has me rethinking everything i've spent the last 25 years doing.  everything.  think about it.   go back 25 years and question the direction you set off in back then.  maybe you shouldn't have taken that particular path, eh?  maybe, just maybe, you should have done something COMPLETELY different.   like, oh...i dunno...become an astronaut, a hobo, a fucking nun*, for that matter...ANYthing other than what you chose.  you were clearly not cut out for this shit. in fact, you are definitely sucking at it.  you are sucking at your chosen way of being a contributing member of life right now.


(*hahahhaaaaa...i said "a fucking nun").


these things have me seriously wondering if i may really, honestly be a certifiable head-case. (all together now..."NOOOOOOO, really?")  it would maybe not explain everything, but would at least give a reasonable platform for all that is fucked up.  normally, i would think that possibility was totally cool and bask in it, but i still have to be a responsible person for some people in my life.  ball-blowing, i say.

it's a shitty place to be and i'm really trying to find happy-shawna - she is still in there, just squashed a bit by feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness.  usually this passes, but i've never actually been up against what i am facing now.  i'm a little bit scared, and that just doesn't happen that often. i'm not sure what to do with it.

hold on loosely, bisshes....don't let go.